In her current UC Review letter, Mary used the word widgets to describe the school district treatment of the current student classes at UC high school. With her 40 years observing the district, she described the insensitivity towards these kids as the plan for scattering them unfolded. Does that make sense if the plan has student needs at its center?
If anyone sees Mary, thank her for sharing her observations in that letter. When I read the report about the community forum that Al posted, I was troubled by the vague assertions of interventions that would target local middle school students. As the president of the teacher's union and the literature point out, that's too late to impact neglected education issues like reading proficiency. It seemed like our fellow citizens were being deceived and told to put hope into what is sometimes called "magical thinking" Why would the proponents of this Penn/Drexel school takeover and change to magnet school mislead the local audience with such a ridiculous assertion? Good plans don't require deception. Why attempt to fool local citizens into believing that this would somehow help their children, now in the same local schools, attend the magnet school? The younger kids presumably have all of the problems current data would suggest? I see no reason to doubt Mary or the 2 news reports about the Penn/Drexel focus. If this proposed school takeover were driven by education experts who wish to impact local public schools, a believable plan and commitment for early intervention would have been the central part of their presentation and would have been discussed in the news reports! It's not some irrelevant issue. Had Penn and Drexel simply said this UC high school takeover is welfare for their gentrification and real estate schemes, I wouldn't doubt their intentions nor suspect deception! Glenn
